Please, do NOT force your toddler to hold the pencil the way a school child does, with 3 fingers on the pencil â you may do more harm than good. It is very hard to âunlearnâ a poor pencil grip later in life! Each stage of holding a pencil or crayon is dependent on how âsteadyâ the shoulder and arm muscles are.
In the equation of a straight line (when the equation is written as  y = mx + b ), the slope is the number  m  that is multiplied on the x, and  b  is the y-intercept, where the line crosses the y-axis.
The intercept is theyvalue when xequals zero, which is 1.0 in the example. Be sure to look carefullyat the x-axis scale; if it does not start at zero, you might read o the interceptincorrectly. The slope is the change in yfor a one-unit change in x. Because theline is straight, you can read this o anywhere.